Spring is in the air

The blizzard warning expired this morning but not before it could unleash its power.  As the wind picked up yesterday afternoon the snow started to fall.  I fell asleep to the sound of wind ripping across the tundra, pounding on the walls and windows of the BIA.

The dance festival that Tununak is hosting started yesterday as well.  Dancers from the surrounding villages began arriving by snowmachine throughout the afternoon and evening, eventually filling the gym at the school with traditional song and dance and the subtle smell of dried fish and seal oil.  Dances usually go late into the night, sometimes ending well after midnight.  I arrived slightly after nine and was told that what I was seeing was the last song of the evening.  Apparently the worsening weather had delayed the arrival of some of the dance groups.  As I helped usher people out of the school for the night I noticed that many of the men in the village were suiting up in their winter gear.  A group coming south from Newtok had not arrived.  With near white-out conditions and night approaching, things could quickly become very dangerous.  A search and rescue group was organizing.  Living in my isolated bubble, rarely leaving teacher housing or the school, let alone the village allows me forget the harsh realities and danger that lurk just beneath the surface of tundra life .  When that danger makes itself present my stomach flips and I get a guilty feeling from forgetting my surroundings- a cardinal sin of living up here.  I went home to my house, the thought of what dying of exposure on the tundra would be like.    

Today, Saturday, when I woke up the wind had died down.  The lost party from Newtok was found. There was an unmeasurable amount of snow spread across the tundra making Tununak look like a cake frosted in white by an amateur baker.  Bare spots showing next to drifts five, even ten feet tall.  The stairs leading up to the school are completely blown over with the railing on the bottom half of the flight completely covered with fresh snow.  Wind lips and cornices have grown on the hill itself drawing my adrenaline-fueled high school boys with their snowmachines.  As the morning wore on, the clouds cleared exposing blue skies and a spring sun growing stronger everyday.

How beautiful it is, spring in Tununak.